In 1954, as high school students line up for “polio” vaccinations, rich girl Allison Vernon-Williams and “juvenile delinquent” Wade “Cry-Baby” Walker get their shots together. Looking into the eyes of the “bad boy” as he sheds a tear, Allison feels her heart skip a beat. After school, she tells herself she is tired of being a “good girl.” Allison approaches Cry-Baby, but her grandmother, Mrs. Vernon-Williams, drives between them in a Cadillac with Allison’s upper-class boyfriend, Baldwin, in the back seat. When Cry-Baby asks Mrs. Vernon-Williams if he can sing in her talent show at the R.S.V.P. Charm School, she tells him to stay away from her granddaughter. Driving home, Mrs. Vernon-Williams warns Allison that Cry-Baby has “evil in his blood,” and Baldwin reminds her that “Squares” like them never hang out with “Drapes” like Cry-Baby Walker. Cry-Baby overtakes them in his jalopy, playing loud music. His passengers are his unwed pregnant sister, Pepper Walker; runaway rockabilly bass player Milton Hackett; sexually precocious Wanda Woodward; and tough girl Mona “Hatchet-Face” Malnorowski. At the R.S.V.P. Charm School cotillion talent show, Mrs. Vernon-Williams tells her well-heeled teenagers to avoid degenerate Drapes and always remember the “four B’s”: beauty, brains, breeding, and bounty. Meanwhile, at the run-down Turkey Point Swim Club, Cry-Baby fends off the blatant romantic attentions of Lenora. The swim club’s owners are Uncle Belvedere and Ramona Ricketts, who fence stolen automobile parts. As a birthday gift, Ramona presents her grandson Cry-Baby with a new motorcycle, which she bought with the proceeds of “stolen hubcaps.” Cry-Baby climbs on the bike and proclaims triumphantly that he “met a girl” that day. Meanwhile, at the R.S.V.P. talent show, Baldwin’s clean-cut vocal group, the Whiffles, deliver a polite performance of “Sh-Boom” wearing white jackets and bow ties. Then, as Allison joins them onstage in a white evening gown to sing “Teenage Prayer,” Baldwin imagines her wearing a bridal dress. However, Allison sees only Cry-Baby’s face in the four faces of the Whiffles. Suddenly, Cry-Baby himself arrives outside on his motorcycle, wearing a black leather jacket, and asks to sing. Baldwin hits him, but Allison comes to Cry-Baby’s defense. She jumps on the back of his motorcycle and accompanies him to Turkey Point, where a Drapes dance party is in full swing. Hatchet-Face Malnorowski, Wanda Woodward, and Pepper Walker welcome Allison into the fold, tell her she needs a “new look,” and give her a Drapes make-over. They also perform as the Cry-Baby Combo, backing singer-guitarist Cry-Baby on a rockabilly song. Now dressed in “cool” Drapes clothes, Allison joins them onstage to prove she “ain’t no Square.” The jealous Lenora throws her panties at Cry-Baby, but he kicks them away. Later, as Allison and Cry-Baby “French kiss” on a blanket in a field, she confesses that she is an orphan whose parents were killed in two separate airplane crashes, and he confides that his parents were both executed on death row, an event he memorializes with a tattoo on his chest of an electric chair. Nearby, Baldwin and the Squares paint graffiti on the Drapes’ cars and set Cry-Baby’s motorcycle afire. A fight breaks out between Squares and Drapes, and riot police toss Allison and the Drapes into paddy wagons. In court, the judge releases most of the Drapes to their parents and Allison to her grandmother, but consigns Pepper Walker’s two young children to the Chatterbox Orphanage and sentences “ringleader” Cry-Baby to the Maryland Training School for Boys until his twenty-first birthday. As police drag Cry-Baby to jail, Lenora throws her arms around his neck and announces to the press that she is having his baby. That night, Cry-Baby and Allison cry in their beds. She collects her tears in a jar and drinks them, while he wipes his sole teardrop with a finger and licks it off. The next morning, seeing a front-page photograph of Lenora hugging Cry-Baby and hearing her proclaim her pregnancy on the radio, Allison is disgusted with herself for believing Cry-Baby’s lies. She rejoins Baldwin and the Whiffles as they serenade beneath her window, and agrees to sing at the opening of the new Enchanted Forest theme park. When Allison calls Cry-Baby a “cad and a liar” on the radio, he plans his jailbreak. Meanwhile, Wanda Woodward returns home to discover that her parents have “swapped” her for Inga, a Swedish exchange student, and expect Wanda to live in Sweden with Inga’s family. Wanda hitchhikes back to Turkey Point to rejoin the Drapes. In jail, Dupree, an African-American Drape, tattoos a “lonely teardrop” under Cry-Baby’s left eye. Later, Cry-Baby escapes through a grate into the prison sewer. Simultaneously, Milton and Hatchet-Face steal a helicopter, land in the jail yard, and run through the cell block looking to rescue Cry-Baby. Unable to find him, they jump into the back of a trash truck and are driven to freedom. Meanwhile, Cry-Baby follows a friendly rat that leads him out of the sewer and into a room full of prison guards, who are happy to see him. The rat laughs at Cry-Baby and disappears. Elsewhere, Belvedere, Ramona, and Pepper steal Pepper’s two children from the Chatterbox Orphanage, and release all the other children, too. The Drapes sneak into the Enchanted Forest theme park, where Allison is singing with the Whiffles. Belvedere jumps onstage and asks Allison to pick the man she wants: Baldwin or Cry-Baby. Lenora grabs a child’s doll and claims it is Cry-Baby’s child. With her grandmother in tow, Allison goes to the jail with the Drapes and sings a song begging the warden to let Cry-Baby go. The judge, romantically interested in Mrs. Vernon-Williams, frees the juvenile delinquent, and Allison and the Drapes greet him outside the jail. As the judge announces the Drape leader’s rehabilitation to reporters, Baldwin taunts Cry-Baby by bragging that his “granddaddy” pulled the switch on Cry-Baby’s father, and that Baldwin’s family still celebrates the execution every year. Cry-Baby challenges him to a “chicken race” between Cry-Baby’s jalopy and Baldwin’s car, but they have to ride on the roofs and let their best friends drive. With Belvedere at the wheel, several Drapes ride in Cry-Baby’s car, while the Whiffles climb into the other. As the cars race toward each other, Pepper delivers her baby in the back seat. The Squares “turn chicken” first and lose the race. Dupree speeds toward the victorious Cry-Baby with Allison on the back of his motorcycle. Slamming on the breaks, he sends her somersaulting through the air into Cry-Baby’s arms.